Whatever Souls Are Made Of
by ILookDaftWithOneShoe
Summary: Planning a wedding is ordinarily a bitch. Planning it when SHIELD's mad at you isn't any easier, and juggling that with work on Extremis and with sorting out the Lightningrod suit is a big headache. Which is why Tony and Loki are letting Darcy and Pepper take over. A few months in the life of the Stark-Laufeysons, leading up to their wedding. Part three of My Fellow Hedonist.
1. Nothing Is Ever Simple

**A/N: **Heyo, this is back! I didn't quite realise how long it'd been, so I'm sorry. School and junk like that.

Sorry for the brevity and lack of excitement featured in this chapter; I had to get us somewhere. Expect better in the future. Expect cute weddings.

* * *

**Chapter 1: Nothing Is Ever Simple**

"No," Loki said firmly, his hands planted on the table.

"You're being unreasonable, Laufeyson," Fury replied, staring Loki down with his one eye.

"It's not mine to give. Extremis belongs to FuturePharm."

"Which you created specifically for Extremis!"

Loki's patience had run short for that debate. It had been rehashed over and over in the last month. "To take control of it away from myself," he pointed out. "I don't want sole responsibility of such a priceless piece of technological development."

"Unlike your teleportation and the Lightningrod suit, of course," Fury countered.

He had a good point. Despite them asking repeatedly, Loki has never let them study the Lightningrod suit.

"It's my belief, as both an Avenger and a physicist, that between the Lightningrod suit, my teleportation technology and Extremis, I have in my possession the most promising and dangerous technologicial advances of the century thus far," Loki replied. "They're dangerous, they're untested, and they're not going to end up in the hands of SHIELD. Not when I can remember so clearly your original intentions for the Tesseract."

"So instead, you're happy for them to reside in your hands? Despite your history?"

"My history of_ what?"_ Loki said in exasperation. "Being helpful? Oh, gods, what a villain I am. Truly dastardly."

Tony and Maya kept quiet. As involved as they were in Extremis, this in particular really was Loki's fight.

"Need I remind you that Malekith took control of you?"

"Are you really bringing that back?" Loki said. "I seem to recall a particular group email that claimed that all who were under the control of Malekith's sceptre would not be prosecuted. I have it saved in my 'Shit Fury Says' folder on SADIE."

There was moment of silence before Loki continued.

"Are you actually bringing new material to the table, or is this just harrassment?" Loki said.

That debate wasn't the first. Or the fifth.

SADIE had managed to remove the video of Loki vs. Killain in a matter of minutes, but it didn't matter; it had been copied and widely viewed in the short time it was up.

At first, there had been public uproar. Loki was being persecuted as a cold-blooded killer, because, well, that sure was what the footage had made him look like.

Tony and Loki's strategy had been to release the matching video from Tony's helmet camera. They'd only released a snippet, to cut out the part where Tony and Loki had been negotiating killing him and to remove the death itself, but it had been quadruple-verified as authentic and Loki's supporters had lapped it up. After all, it showed a glowing guy attacking him repeatedly, and showed that Loki had killed him only after Killian had tried to burn Tony again.

There was still a lot of doubt - there always was in cases like that - but Loki was generally in the clear.

Darcy had made a great game out of encouraging the fringe theory internet folks to come up with their own versions of what had happened.

However, a new question had been raised. Was there such a thing as a justified murder, especially for an Avenger? Loki said yes. Repeatedly, loudly, and at a press conference.

"He was a terrorist and a violent psychopath," Loki had said. "He had killed and damaged so many American citizens, blown them to pieces and blamed others, and you're asking if I was justified in killing him? Of course I was! It was beyond self-defence and beyond saving Tony Stark; in this case I was trying to protect each and every citizen of this country, and because I succeeded in doing so, at least in this case, then I refuse to believe I have done wrong."

It had been a powerful statement, and as it turned out, most people agreed with him. He was largely exonerated in the eyes of the public.

That wasn't the point. The point was that the bubble had burst; the idea of the righteous, do-no-harm Avengers had been destroyed when Loki had had to defend a murder.

Fortunately for some high-ups, that coincided neatly with Clint, Steve and Natasha's warning that they were being officially reassigned come February. That pushed the Avengers in general out of everyone's hair.

However, it didn't settle the debate about Extremis. Tony and Loki had been working hard to keep Fury off their backs; Extremis really was the new gateway to superhumans, and SHIELD loved the idea.

Maya was just keeping out of it. Loki had given her a small lab in Laufeyson Tower to run her experiments and the place had been slowly filling up with plants ever since.

That wasn't to say that Tony and Loki weren't working on Extremis: for a start, they needed to stabilise it in Loki and Pepper and try and remove it. Tests proved it would pass out of the body in time.

"Look, Blackbeard, Loki's right," Tony cut in. "We've been over this. Extremis belongs to FuturePharm and isn't available for sale or rent right now. Maybe when it's stabilised, you can talk to the corporate lawyers about negotiating a deal."

"You don't have corporate lawyers," Fury pointed out. "You don't even have any goddamn employees!"

"Not 'we'," Loki said gently. "'Them'. We aren't FuturePharm."

"You _are!"_ Fury shouted, then took a deep breath. "Get out of my office before I throw you little shits off the Helicarrier."

They did leave.

"I think that went well," Maya said dryly.

"Absolutely perfectly," Tony agreed.

Loki held out a hand to them. "Go team."

They placed their hands on his as a mockery of a team cheer as Loki teleported them back to Laufeyson Tower.

Appearing in the FuturePharm lab, the scent of earth and something burning assaulted them. Maya dashed over to the main worktable, where a small lavender bush had exploded about half an hour ago.

"Another failure," Maya said. She drew a clipboard over to herself and drew a line through something written on it.

"Show me the structure," Loki said. She passed him the clipboard and he examined it, Tony inspecting it too.

"You've been changing this?" Tony asked, tapping a part of the equation she'd been using.

Maya nodded. "Changing it according to your specs, too, and we're getting longer intervals between introduction and explosion, and the explosion's not as fierce. But we've reached the upper limit and it's still not completely stable. If you two've thought of anything, now's the time to tell me."

"Well, I thought..." Tony said, dragging some note paper towards himself and writing something out on it. "Might increase the heat factor of the whole thing, too, but mostly I figured-"

"Tried that. It didn't explode, but the heat overflow was so great that the whole plant set on fire."

"I remember that," Loki said. "That was a mess. Let's not do that again."

"Just a suggestion," Tony said, raising his hands defensively.

"The principle's sound, it just doesn't work out," Maya said. "Get on the scanner, Loki."

Loki didn't bother to protest: he was used to it by then. Instead he just stripped to the waist and stood in a little patch of open space so SADIE could take accurate scans of his body temperature.

To their credit, Maya and Tony barely reacted, just added the new results to the graph they'd been running of Loki's body temperature. Right after the introduction of Extremis, he'd been an unhealthy number of degrees above standard human body temperature. It had been very slowly decreasing since then; according to their calculations, in another month and a half it would leave his body entirely, so long as he didn't replenish it.

After getting used to it, however, Loki didn't intend for all of it to leave his body. He just wanted a more stable version. At the moment, the uncontrolled and constant healing and repairing going on in his body was raising the temperature just a little, but Loki had theorised that Extremis would fight back quite violently against the Lightningrod suit now that it had settled in his body. Not wanting to experiment, Loki had simply declared himself grounded until Extremis's effects weakened or in case of emergency.

After the group check-up on Extremis, Tony and Loki left Maya to her work and headed back to Stark Tower to see everyone.

As it turned out, they'd already been briefed on the meeting. That was, Natasha had, and she'd passed the information on to Clint, who'd complained about Loki's stubborness to Darcy, who'd thought the matter over and decided Loki was in the right.

Hence why Clint and Darcy were shouting at each other.

Steve and Bruce hadn't been briefed, but they could figure it out from what Clint and Darcy were saying rather easily.

Clint and Darcy's relationship had always been a slightly odd one, held together more by mutual wicked senses of humour and general enjoyment of each other's company than romantic attraction. Neither had long term plans, but one doesn't date someone for half a year without feeling somewhat attached.

Generally speaking. Loki had been sort of with Angie for just over seven months and hadn't really cared for her either way. Sassy, but a meth addict, which balanced out.

In any case, their relationship wasn't dealing with the strain of Clint leaving in the near future. Darcy didn't want a long-distance relationship. Clint didn't seem to feel strongly on the subject.

Once Darcy saw Loki there, however, she just said "Fuck it, we're done," and stormed towards Loki, grabbing him by the tie and leading him out of the room by the neck.

"Hello to you too," Loki said once the door had closed behind them. "Take a few deep breaths, I think."

Darcy leaned against the wall, took a few deep breaths and steeled herself.

She'd never been a crier. Loki hadn't seen her shed tears on many occasions, but she did tremble when upset, which she was doing.

"Men are stupid," she told Loki after a minute. "'Specially you."

"That can only be a compliment," Loki said. "You and Tony both insult me when you try and be nice."

Darcy chuckled and wiped her glasses clean. "Here's how it's gonna work: you're going to send for pizza and Ben &amp; Jerry's, then we're gonna watch movies. Tony's invited, Maya too I guess. I'm going to forget about boys - straight boys, I suppose - and it's gonna be fun. Or else."

"I can arrange that," Loki said. "I have a little business to conduct with my fellow Avengers on the subject of SHIELD, so Tony and I will be there soon, yes?"

"Go for it," Darcy said. "Teleport me home. Just remember: Clint called you a stubborn ass. Don't let that slide."

"How dare he," Loki said with a dry smile. "You like the one made out of cookie dough, am I correct?"

"And the Phish Food one. Don't skimp on me," Darcy said.

She ended up hugging him before he sent her back to Laufeyson Tower.

Once that was sorted out, Loki returned to the living room. Clint was conspicuously absent, but everyone else was still there.

"About the meeting," Loki said. "We did resist Fury again, to his annoyance. I understand if any or all of you disagree with my and Tony's reasons for doing this, but I'd appreciate it if none of you at least actively worked against us."

"Personally, I agree with you," Steve said. "After the Tesseract, I don't think I trust SHIELD with potentially dangerous technology. I'm just not certain I agree with your methods."

"Eh, we've been there before," Tony chipped in. "Nat, Brucie boy, you cool with that?"

Bruce did agree with them too, and Natasha didn't reveal her feelings on the matter, but did say she had no plans to help Fury on the matter.

"It's just Clint, I guess," Tony said. "I'm guessing that talking to him right now will go badly. He just got dumped."

"I'd imagine so," Natasha said. "I'll talk to him about Extremis."

"Thank you," Loki said. "And now, Tony, Darcy demands we eat grossly calorific food and watch terrible rom-coms. Feel free to run for the hills."

"Are you kidding me?" Tony grinned. "I live for shitty food and shittier movies. Let's get out of here."

-O.O-

By the time they made it to Laufeyson Tower with the requested items, Darcy had folded out the sofa-bed in her living room, put a quilt on it, and picked some god-awful movies. She'd consulted with Maya on the latter; the two of them had, surprisingly, somewhat become friends.

Something to do with very dry senses of humour and both having high-level characters on the same RPG. Loki just accepted it.

As a pre-pizza snack (which was apparently necessary) Darcy had made popcorn. After Maya appointed herself a spot on the other couch, Darcy steered Loki towards the middle of the couch mattress, plonked the popcorn bowl on his chest and curled up next to him. According to Darcy, her glorious chest was a pain in the ass to balance things on.

Once Tony had - slightly awkwardly - settled himself on Loki's other side, Darcy started the first movie.

"You okay?" Loki murmured to her, covered by the opening titles.

"Yeah," Darcy replied quietly. "It was going to happen."

"Doesn't make it any more fun," Loki said.

"I'll be alright," Darcy said. "Trust me. I'm tougher than a hundred Iron Mans taped together."

"Good to hear it," Loki said.

The break was a welcome change for all of them, anyway. There was always more drama waiting for them in the future.


	2. A Mild Afternoon

**Chapter Two: A Mild Afternoon**

The sleepover actually did Loki and Tony some good, distracting them from life. Plus, it had been at least a year or two since Loki and Darcy had fallen asleep together, and it felt nice falling back into old patterns.

Double bonus having Tony there too. Loki wanted to make a thing of it. Not a threesome thing though. That would be too much.

It was a work day for Loki the next day, so he and Darcy actually worked while Tony and Maya worked on Extremis.

No breakthroughs. Extremis seemed to react to every change by exploding or overloading in heat. Tony had recently lent Dum-E to the Extremis lab as fire control. This was a mixed bag, because Dum-E just wasn't the most sensible robot about.

Tony loved him anyway. Loved the sight of his darling fiance covered in flame retardant foam even more.

After half a year spent barely turning up at work, Loki was having to actually do his job, which kind of did itself now that the company was huge. Centred in both New York and London, with other offices of varying sizes in Delhi, Beijing and Stockholm, it had gotten to the point where it seemed to look after itself.

Seemed to. Loki did actually have stuff to do. Mostly signing things, attending meetings, and hanging around the R&amp;D department.

He was proud of the fact that he knew the names of most of the actual scientists in the department. They seemed happy enough just that he recognised their existence.

His plan for the next day had been to devote half of it to working on bettering the Lightningrod suit. This was until Fury requested Loki's presence in front of a few representatives of SHIELD and the Council.

Keeping up with his facade of helpful stubbornness, Loki pretty much had to go. Unfortunately, the invite was for him only and Tony couldn't come.

Going sucky places without Tony just made them suck that much more.

Thusly, he got out of bed that morning, got dressed, kissed Tony goodbye and headed for the Helicarrier. Probably for more of the same nonsense, just with different players.

Fury was there. Latimer was too, but only on a screen, not in the room. The other people Loki didn't really recognise, barring the omnipresent Maria Hill.

"Fury, it's just a little cruel to call your bigger, tougher friends over to scare me," Loki said dryly, making sure his posture was confident as he flopped into a seat.

Fury blinked hard with his one good eye, clearly taking a moment to get a hold of himself.

"Laufeyson," Fury began. Then he sat down. "Loki. We just want to have a reasonable discussion about your technology."

"A reasonable discussion wherein I'm outnumbered by several people with potentially a lot of power over me," Loki said agreeably. "That sounds completely and utterly fair. No power dynamic issues there at all."

Fury really did hate dealing with a recalcitrant Loki. He was almost as bad as Stark - though not quite - and the two of them together was a neverending nightmare.

He just decided to ignore that comment. "You've made it clear to us in the last few weeks that you would prefer not to be involved in the Avengers, though you're happy to continue protecting the people from threats of that sort. A subject we wanted to discuss was replacing you on the team."

"There is no team," Loki pointed out. "Without me, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and Cap, there is only Dr Banner and my darling fiance. And Banner is sick and tired of transforming into the Hulk on command, trust me. So that leaves Iron Man, and I'll let you in on a little secret: he and I generally move as one."

"We need Avengers," Fury insisted. "Even if you serve little actual function, you're a symbol. You are larger than life; you make people feel safe."

"Whoop-de-doo," Loki said sarcastically. "You want me to give you a replica of the Lightningrod suit for someone else to wear. That would be a no."

"Even if you had overall control of it-"

"There is no chance I would trust anyone else with the Lightningrod suit. Aside from the extreme technical difficulty in operating it - to be honest, one would have to be a maths genius like myself, and the people you want to send into battle wearing these would not be - this is a dangerous weapon. Hugely so. I have restraint, I hold back, but I don't doubt that the suit could kill tens to hundreds in a single blow, depending on the power source drawn from. In addition to that, torture, theft, physical damage and the suchlike all become so much more doable. Perhaps it's best that the only copy of the suit rests in the hands of someone who wants for none of those," Loki said. "All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

"It's a nice speech, Laufeyson," Latimer cut in dryly. "But your history of instability and anger control issues doesn't make us happy to have you owning your 'dangerous weapon'."

"Yes, well, nobody asked you," Loki said snippily. He still didn't like her. "To be honest, I'm not entirely certain why everyone keeps telling me I have a history of being unstable. Personally, I think I'm excellently sound."

"Hm," Fury said. "You've proven yourself to be good under stress, barring the time immediately after the second invasion."

Loki couldn't deny that. "In my defence, I was very tired and I'd nearly died shortly earlier."

"That's why I used the phrase 'under stress'. I wasn't referring to your ability to make a decision sitting on your ass in your office chair," Fury replied.

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Actually, I use a Swiss Ball as of recently. They're a little more fun, and good for your core strength."

Again, Fury steeled himself to continue the conversation.

"This is beside the point. You really won't allow anyone to use the technology you created," Fury paraphrased.

"You make me sound so unreasonable. No one can use it because it nearly killed me and could drive a weaker someone to do awful things. That seems reasonable," Loki said.

"And your teleportation?"

"Still too dangerous. Causes heart attacks and death through long-term usage, and I don't know how it would affect children and elders," Loki said dismissively. "I'm working on it."

"Which brings us back to Extremis. You can't distract us with saying it's too difficult to operate or it's dangerous."

"Ah, yes, I can," Loki said. "It's very dangerous. I seem to remember a string of attacks using Extremis as the volatile weapon."

"You've fixed that."

"Trust me," Loki said, making the tips of his fingers glow for theatrical purposes. "I haven't."

"And we can't have it in its unfinished form," Fury said.

"Now you're catching on," Loki said. "We've been over this so many times. If it doesn't react well to its new host, it explodes at temperatures of so many degrees. I won't have that on my admittedly limited conscience. Nor will I have chargrilled spies falling on New York."

"Can you give us an estimated time of completion?"

"I'm a physicist, not a chrononaut," Loki said shortly. "It's not a matter of constructing something to a schedule. We're trying permutations of various unstable aspects of Extremis in an attempt to stabilise. We could finish in five minutes or five hundred years. Either way, I'm almost certainly not letting you have it. What part of 'dangerous weapon' do you not understand?"

"It would help bring peace-"

"Peace doesn't happen by setting shit on fire," Loki said. It was what Tony would have said, too, probably.

"You'd be surprised, Laufeyson," Fury said.

"And now we're back to Laufeyson. I'd thought we'd moved past the formalities," Loki said. "This is a rehash of our last meeting. You walk me in here, you receive a no answer. I came today because you said that this meeting would involve the Council, and I wanted to make my refusal to aid you final and conclusive. I don't care if this alienates me from SHIELD. I don't actually need you. And I certainly don't want to give you Extremis, for the last time. Is that all?"

"It is," Latimer said. "By our own rules, this will not pit the World Security Council against you. However, you lose all benefits you had from our association."

"You're not taking my medal?" Loki enquired.

Latimer shook her head. "You earned that in combat, regrettably."

"Well, that's it, then," Loki said. He was gone at the speed of light. Literally.

That was probably it. The end of the irritating meetings and the suchlike. Loki certainly hoped so. He was getting quite sick of saying the same thing over and over.

He was getting sick of SHIELD. And the Avengers. And wearing horns and shooting electricity out of his hands and making instant decisions that could affect millions of lives.

His main concern was that he might not be able to study Malekith anymore, though he knew Malekith was more loyal to him than to SHIELD. The inquest into magic had taught them little so far, but they had ascertained that there were three types, and only Malekith's type was completely energy-based. The other two were more natural and couldn't be taught; they had to be present at birth.

After examining the pair of them, Malekith had announced Tony to have near no magical ability at all, and Loki some, but the amount of time needed to develop it fully was significantly longer than Loki's lifespan. So not a good idea.

Loki went home. He found Tony and Maya working on Extremis, the tips of Maya's hair scorched from a spontaneously combusting succulent plant.

"Let's go for a walk," Loki said to Tony after he told them about the meeting.

"Where?" Tony said suspiciously.

"Central Park," Loki said definitively. "When have we ever gone there?"

"I threw half the lake in the air and you turned up the power," Tony reminded him.

"The good old days," Loki said with a theatrical sigh. He changed into casual clothes, gave Tony a jacket to put over his singlet, and they headed out.

It wasn't far. Closer than if they were coming from Stark Tower, and it was midday, the air crisp and chill but not wet with rain.

They talked idly about things, mostly Extremis, as they headed there. After a block or two of them walking next to each other, separated by half a foot of space, Tony's hand threaded in Loki's and they continued on joined like that.

People recognised them. Some people reacted, either negatively or positively. Loki didn't want to care, and so he didn't.

They stopped talking about business after a while and suddenly got domestic: they were planning their living arrangements after the wedding. They'd pretty much ascertained that they both wanted to live in their own homes, just moving as a pair between the two. Loki needed to get some slightly different furniture. Tony needed a bigger wardrobe.

The wedding itself next. Pepper and Darcy had it covered. In fact, apart from giving their opinions on aethetic choices and personal preferences, they'd been told to keep their noses out of it.

A date had even been picked. April 17th, which gave them three months. Three months for what, they weren't sure, but when it was over, they knew they were honeymooning somewhere quiet, hopefully where no one could reach them.

By this point they had reached the park, walked around it some and then sat down on the damp grass next to the lake.

Not too many people - by New York's standards - were out in the nippy cold. Loki laid back on the grass, feeling it prickle the back of his neck, and sensed Tony do the same.

"This is nice," Tony said. "I mean, it's boring. But the good kind of boring."

Loki thought on that for a minute. "You know how you have an argument with someone, and then afterwards, you think of so many clever insults and quips you could have used on them?"

"Mm," Tony acknowledged lazily.

"I've been thinking of them the whole way here," Loki said. "I do wish I'd called Fury some of these things. They're completely tasteless and I love them."

"I always wanted to call him by some pirate terms. Something about peg legs. Maria's his parrot."

"Perhaps you could tell him where to find the booty?" Loki replied.

"I hate you."

"No, you don't," Loki said. "I'm too excellent."

"Yeah, you sort of are," Tony said. "But I'm better."

"We're both excellent. So much so that when we get Laufeyson-Stark officialised, every piece of paper it's written on will combust from its raw potency," Loki said.

"Stark-Laufeyson," Tony reminded him.

"What's wrong with Laufeyson-Stark?" Loki said.

"It sounds like 'Laufeyson's ark'," Tony said. "And I may support you in your endeavours, but I'm not getting two of every animal just so you can have your name first."

"That's a stupid reason."

"Laufeyson is a stupid name," Tony said conclusively.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Should it be Valfodr-Stark instead? Because that doesn't sound like a sneeze, oh no," Loki said dryly.

"No need to get bitchy."

"Bitchy's my thing."

"I thought I was your thing," Tony said, mock-hurt.

They could bicker lightly like that for hours, and did, lying on the bank of the lake. It was only once the clouds darkened menacingly that they headed home.

* * *

**A/N: **I promise this part of the series will perk up.

Next time: Loki's birthday!


	3. More Birthday Wishes

**Chapter 3: More Birthday Wishes**

She crept closer to them as they slept, SADIE not raising any alarms even as she loomed over Loki.

She raised the object in her hand and pulled the trigger.

_PAAAAAAAAAARP!_

Loki's eyes snapped open and he grabbed Darcy's wrist and bodily threw her. She landed on Tony roughly, who was also awake and panicking, and he kicked her onto the floor in fright while yelping, hands raised as if to fire imaginary repulsors.

"Ow. Shit," Darcy said, from a crumpled position on the floor.

Tony and Loki both took a moment to calm down.

"Darcy, what the fuck?" said Tony.

"I agree," Loki said. "Even by your standards, dearest, this is rude."

"Happy birthday, you really strong asshole," Darcy said, flexing her wrist to check for damage.

"Hey, yeah, it's your birthday!" Tony exclaimed. He then leaned over and gave Loki a dramatic _mwah!_ of a kiss on the cheek. "Happy a million, old guy."

Loki's eyes flashed red. "I don't want a birthday thing," he warned them.

"And it's not just your birthday," Tony continued, strategically ignoring him. "It's also our anniversary."

Darcy frowned as she sat up. "You two haven't been together that long."

"Anniversary of the first time we fucked, you poor, naive soul," Tony grinned. He then wrapped his arm around Loki. "We're doing a thing. To celebrate."

"I don't want a birthday thing," Loki repeated.

"We're not having one," Darcy said. "Not a big one, anyway. I knew you wouldn't like that."

Loki sighed, clenched his jaw, and then put on a polite smile. "And what does this involve?"

"Well. I have plans. But first, breakfast, and before that, shower. I've left you an hour because you two fool around in the morning a lot," Darcy said, in a rare display of her - actually quite comprehensive - professional abilities. "Then, I ordered English Breakfast. The fancy type with the weird fish."

"Kippers, Darcy," Loki said.

"That's the one," Darcy nodded. "When I was little, we'd go to an IHOP for a fancy breakfast. Kind of like a heart attack on a plate, but it tasted like heaven."

Tony and Loki just looked at Darcy expectantly.

When she didn't get the message, Loki said "I believe you said something about giving us some time to ourselves?"

"Oh yeah," Darcy said. She seemed rather excited. As she headed for the door, she added "It's your birthday, Loki, you deserve to top!"

And she left.

"I think she's more excited about this than you are," Tony said.

"Which has always been the case," Loki shrugged. "I expected something similar, though perhaps not so boisterous. And she was right."

"Kippers?"

"I do deserve to top, don't I?" Loki said with a faux-thoughtful smile, climbing over Tony. "I'm the birthday boy."

-O.O-

They were a few minutes late to breakfast. Darcy took a photo of Loki's face on her phone.

"You've got the cheekbone spots," she said.

Loki ignored that too, taking a seat and inspecting breakfast. There was a lot of it.

Maya turned up after a few minutes. "Happy birthday, Loki," she said with one of those crooked smiles that spelt sincerity. Then she dug in.

"Anything?" Loki asked.

"Heat spikes are down. Sort of. We're getting a shorter time between introduction and rejection."

"Is that good or bad?" Tony asked.

Maya shrugged.

They ate in silence for a few minutes before Tony thought of something. "It's also Valentine's Day. Maya, you should come with us. As Darcy's date or something."

Darcy squinted at Maya. "You're not really my type."

"That's not the point," Tony said.

"No, no, I could kind of see it," Maya said, squinting right back at Darcy.

"Don't make me think about that," Loki said. "Regardless, Maya, whatever Darcy has planned, you're welcome to join in."

Tony giggled at that. Loki kicked him.

"Ow, fuck," Tony cursed, nursing his leg after the blow.

"Oh yes. I have super strength. What a pity," Loki said dryly.

"When I've got Extremis, I'm going to use it relentlessly. Every superflick and superpoke and superkick you've given me you're getting back double," Tony warned.

"I can teleport," Loki said dismissively.

"The longer you run, the longer you'll go without sex, Sparkles," Tony pointed out.

"Pfft," Loki poked out his tongue. "As if. You couldn't possibly resist me."

"Don't overstate yourself, Lo'. You're just a pity fuck."

Darcy cleared her throat. "Anyway, here's our action packed schedule-" she added a dramatic pause. Then "Fuck all. You don't like being dragged places. We're going out for dinner later, and that's it. Maybe we can play laser tag or something." Then she turned to Maya. "We should get the Avengers to play laser tag."

"I want to see the Black Widow and Captain America laser battling," Maya smiled.

"So do I. Loki, you want some of that, or will you save it for another day?" Darcy said, her posture urging him on.

"Darcy, I do appreciate your efforts, but I truly don't care. If you'd like to do that, let's do that."

"I'm going to pretend that was enthusiastic. SADIE, find me a laser tag place. A good one."

-O.O-

They did end up playing laser tag at a kid's amusement zone several blocks away that they hired for a few hours. Bruce wasn't very interested, but Clint, Nat and Steve could be convinced and were.

Which led to the issue of teams. It was ascertained that Maya and Darcy just weren't that useful, so they were paired with Clint and Steve, while Tony and Loki got Nat.

This suited them perfectly in terms of laying traps and sneaking about.

After stealthy attacks by the resident master assassins, it was only Clint versus Tony and Nat. Maya had been shot long-range by Nat, Darcy had launched a dramatic attack and had been gunned down, and Steve and Loki had mutually destroyed each other.

Then Clint got Nat in a lucky shot. Which left Tony.

"You better be trembling in your shoes, bird brain!" Tony called.

"Yeah, I'm terrified, Shellhead," Clint shouted back.

Unfortunately, Tony had some wicked cramp in his lower leg and he had to move. He never stood a chance against a sharpshooter.

-O.O-

"You need to be stronger than the pain, love," Loki told him fiercely. "For Team Laufeyson-Stark."

"Stark-Laufeyson."

"I think Team Romanov is more appropriate," Natasha remarked. "Have you two really not decided on your shared last name yet?"

"Well, we have to keep our current ones," Tony said. "Brand name, iconic, all that. But we also need something that links us to the other person. So a hyphenated name."

"Unfortunately, Tony refuses to have my last name first, despite how easily that combination rolls off the tongue," Loki continued.

"Laufeyson's. Ark. Enough with that."

"No one gives a shit if it sounds like 'ark'," Loki said, then softened it by adding "Dearest," on the end.

"Have you considered both of you just picking which one you prefer?" Maya said, speaking up.

"But then we don't _match,"_ Tony said sadly.

"Don't give me problems, give me solutions," Maya told him.

"At the last minute, while I'm dressing in my formalwear, I reflect that I should have married, say, Sif, and I catch a last minute flight. The wedding does not go forth. Tony, heartbroken, undergoes a crisis of identity and becomes a supervillain. I become Mr Sif and Tony drops his last name in favour of a pseudonym. The problem is solved," Loki said.

"That would work," Tony admitted. "A terrible idea, but physically possible."

"That's what I generally go for," Loki said. "I got a supersuit out of it."

"And I'm very proud of you," Darcy said. "Anyone up for another game?"

-O.O-

Team Romanov did succeed this time, and Tony and Loki then bickered over the merits of changing their last name to 'Romanov' and leaving the Starks and Laufeysons out of it. It certainly had credit.

Natasha banned them from doing so.

In a change of heart, Loki invited the Avengers with them to dinner; it was exactly nine days until Clint, Nat and Steve were leaving, and they were going to have their fancy dinner then.

This was all very well and good. Unfortunately, mid-dessert (complete with chocolate cake for the birthday boy) Maya's eyes widened dramatically and she tapped Loki on the arm and whispered something to him, and then he leaned over and repeated it to Tony.

"We have to go," Loki said. "Science calls. Back in a minute."

Then they vanished. They came back about half an hour later, minus Maya.

"We think we've solved it!" Tony said brightly.

"What's that?" Clint asked.

"Extremis," Loki said, heating his finger and relighting the candles on his cake. "Maya will probably spend the next three days in a pile of leaves and science. She's precious like that."

Tony then stole Loki's slice of cake and switched it for his own. Loki glared at him.

"You like icing. I don't. Now we're both happy."

"I'll forgive you this time," Loki said.

Then Darcy started singing _Happy Birthday_. Tony joined in loudly, then Clint, and then everything snowballed from there. Loki just smiled.

-O.O-

Loki's birthday finished firstly with dashing to the lab after dinner to see Maya, who'd come up with a potential permutation of Extremis that could be very stable, and was currently describing to SADIE how to synthesise it. Leaving her to her moment of glory, they headed upstairs to Loki's floor, which quickly resulted in clothes on the floor and the bed in a hell of a state.

With Tony's head resting on his chest, Loki was running his fingers around Tony's arc reactor, tracing the rim and then the triangular design on the front.

"It's going to be gone," Loki told him.

"Good," Tony said. "Time to forget all that bullshit."

-O.O-

The next day, Maya confirmed that the plants had accepted the new structure without explosions or any heat spikes. They were going to monitor it for another week to confirm stability, but it was already going better than 99% of their experiments.

Maya and Darcy vanished to celebrate, probably with their beloved RPG.

There was one Avengers callout over the next week - a search and rescue after the collision of two boats. But Loki and Tony could handle it on their own. The redundancy of the Avengers was becoming pretty noticeable.

Of course, they were all still technically on reserve, but still.

Natasha and Clint were going to the Helicarrier while Steve was headed to DC. One of SHIELD's odd planes picked Nat and Clint up; everyone said goodbye to Natasha rather sadly, and Clint mostly so, but Loki's slight frostiness and Darcy's lack of eye contact gave them away.

Steve left that afternoon, followed by generally respectful sounds and the hope that everyone would see home again.

And then the greatly reduced Avengers went inside to play Scrabble.


	4. I Wonder What The Something Borrowed Is

**Chapter Four: I Wonder What The Something Borrowed Is**

The passing of a better part of a month found Darcy, Loki and Tony attending Thor's wedding. Thor had been acting like it was rushing up to them far too fast, but the fact was he'd been dating Jane for the best part of a decade and no one was exactly shocked.

Back in November some people had certainly been surprised to hear that Loki was swinging back into Thor's life and instantaneously earning himself the position of Best Man, but, well, it was Thor's decision and despite his usually gentle nature no one wanted to mess with Thor when it came to his family.

This meant that Loki was dressed formally even by his own standards, and Tony was on his arm as a plus-one.

They arrived a few days early and ended up spending a lot of time with Jane, who was very, very close to a breakthrough on her work. She seemed to be considering turning up to her own wedding in her work clothes so she could sprint to her lab if anything happened. Darcy managed to talk her out of it.

But Jane and Erik Selvig - who seemed to be over his issues with Loki, or was maybe just refusing to say anything - had a lot to tell them. Two galactic structures, they both said. Malekith's Nine Realms taken directly out of Norse Mythology were one of them, and the other was the known universe, with the Milky Way and all that. Earth was the bridge between them. That was all a theory, of course, based on the information SHIELD had given them about Malekith's origins and from something to with Einstein-Rosen Bridge frequencies. Loki and Tony lost them somewhere around the time they started using soap bubble analogies. But it certainly was interesting.

In exchange for all of this, Loki and Tony taught them about Extremis. This seemed to excite them greatly.

After giving it three weeks to see if anything bad would happen, Extremis itself had nearly been given the green light. If nothing had exploded or experienced heat fluctuations or anything of the like when they got home, then it would officially be safe to use. Tony was first in line.

Loki and Tony had ended up opting out of the stag party. Thor's friends would be there, and Loki notoriously did not get along with them. For once, Loki was specifically aiming to keep the peace. He did rather owe it to Thor.

Instead they sat around with Selvig and talked about Malekith.

Their magical studies had been happening, but Malekith had actually been busy on several occasions and they really weren't getting anywhere. Malekith came from a planet where formal education had been nil and he knew nothing about magical theory himself, as he'd been taught to just do it. Fortunately, his knowledge of magical transport and the Nine Realms was excellent, and learning about all of it would be fascinating if he was ever around.

But SHIELD had him doing something. Fortunately, Malekith was stubborn, so he probably wasn't being forced to anything awful.

Selvig seemed oddly at peace with himself, considering that he'd been locked up and tortured by both Loki and Malekith in the past. It had been the better part of a year and now he could look Loki in the eye, which was a decent effort, though it wasn't hard to miss the pill bottles peeking out of his duffel bag.

"You've become a mellow man, Loki," Selvig told him at some point in the night.

Loki wondered then if that was true. Certainly he didn't feel particularly angry or vengeful or sad at any given moment like he used to. Certainly he'd probably smiled honestly more in the last year than in the preceding half a decade. And certainly he was here missing out on Maybe he was mellow, but at least he wasn't as mellow as a decidedly stoned Selvig.

-O.O-

Darcy was one of Jane's friends attending to her on the big day, so she was long gone in the morning, no doubt with several coffees and all the helpful (?) tips she could muster.

Loki, as the Best Man, was attending to Thor, who despite his many years of attending social functions apparently still needed help stuffing himself into a tuxedo.

"I'm certain you know this," Loki told him as he tidied Thor up. "But smile a lot, look at Jane the entire time, and don't skimp on the tears; everyone lets out a little tragic sigh at that."

Thor looked at him thoughtfully. "Have ever not overthought something in your life?"

"Probably not," Loki said. "Also, I may be paying for it from my neverending bank account, but don't overdo the champagne; it really does make one unpleasant to kiss."

"Thank you for the advice, I suppose, brother," Thor said.

Loki pursed his lips for a minute before saying "I will never be your brother." He left enough time for Thor to look a little miffed before he added "That would be because my brother really was a dick. However, I'd accept pseudofamilial friend."

Thor ignored most of that. "Brother," he said warmly, squeezing Loki into one of his patented hugs.

Loki tolerated it. It was the man's wedding, after all. And on that subject:

"By the way, Thor, consider yourself and our dear mother invited to my own wedding. Formal invitations to follow when Darcy and Pepper get around to it," Loki said into Thor's shoulder.

Thor pulled away. "It would be my pleasure."

"Unfortunately, Darcy called dibs on being my Best Man, or woman as the case may be, so you've missed your chance," Loki said dryly. That was true. Darcy had pretty much demanded it, and Loki wasn't about to deny her that.

Once he'd sorted Thor out, Loki briefly vanished to find Tony, who was enjoying himself in intelligent conversation with some work colleagues of Jane's.

"How's Thor?" Tony asked.

"Fine. Very sentimental," Loki said truthfully.

Tony shrugged. "It's his wedding."

"It'll be ours soon. Don't get too weepy, dearest," Loki said, pecking Tony on the cheek and moving off in search of Jane.

The wedding was coming together neatly. Darcy had apparently given Jane the pep talk of a lifetime and she was more than ready to go.

After checking a few other things, Loki was back with Thor and ready to go, the weight of the ring heavy in his pocket. Almost to match it, Loki was running his fingers over his own ruby engagement ring, thinking of how much he was looking forward to being in this situation himself.

Loki and Tony had both started wearing their engagement rings as soon as they'd arrived, but they both kept taking them off while working with their hands, so that habit had died off. But they'd worked with a jewellers and developed something not unlike a clear nail polish that would keep the gemstones in one piece and the gold straight and clean. Now the rings were back in full force. It was nice, a little reminder on their finger that they cared about each other.

-O.O-

Loki had only sort of half-prepared a speech. He had the skeleton of it, but really, it felt kind of awkward using his clinical speechwriting skills to prepare something so heartfelt.

And then all of a sudden he was standing up in front of everyone and generally expected to profess the undying affection he felt for Thor.

"Some of my earliest memories are of Thor," Loki began, just slightly uncertainly. "When I was four, I was punished for convincing Thor to shock himself with a wall socket. I was curious. I thank Thor for enduring the pain; it sparked, so to say, my interest in electricity."

There was a general murmur of amusement.

"When we were growing up, we really were friends. It seems strange to think of it now. But owing to our dear father-" a certain percentage of sarcasm was involved "-a rift grew between us. It takes no genius to realise that I was a bitter child anyway, and that Thor was not the most sensitive creature. But by high school I would not be in the same room as him. I left school early and became something like a delinquent. What I didn't realise was that while I was becoming more unpleasant, Thor was mellowing out and becoming a pleasure to be around. He introduced me to Darcy, a constant light in my life, and at the same time was meeting Jane."

With the tone of someone who was getting to the point, Loki went on. "I knew Jane in a professional capacity. She is, in short, brilliant. A scientist whose work is beginning to rival Einstein's. And she will go far," Loki said. "I would not have thought her Thor's ideal match. But she is an inspiration, and he helps encourage that, much like myself and the wall socket. And they are both willing to fight for each other, to care for each other, to inspire each other, and really, I'm not certain a relationship should be anything else. Thank you."

Loki felt like he'd said the right thing.

-O.O-

The wedding itself went nicely, everything coming off without a hitch. Thor and Jane looked almost comically happy.

Loki quite enjoyed it.

At the reception, Loki was again determined not to make waves, so first he went and talked to Frigga, minus Odin. She really was happy to see him, so excited to congratulate him in person for his news about Tony and to make sure he was in one piece for real after what she'd seen from Christmas.

After that pleasurable encounter, he sat with Jane's science friends and Tony and made pleasant conversation.

When he'd been sitting there for a while, hands suddenly clapped over his eyes.

"Guess-"

"Darcy," Loki said before she could finish.

"How'd you guess?" she said lightly, flopping into an empty seat. "Weddings are so much drama."

"You love drama."

"I do," Darcy said. "Was I complaining? Hey, I think Thor wants to have some bro time before the first dance and all that. Better make yourself known."

Loki suppressed an eye roll and a groan as he pulled himself to his feet. Politeness.

He found Thor predictably standing as close as he could be to Jane without getting inappropriate. He was talking to Volstagg, Sif and Hogun, but Fandral was thankfully absent.

"Here he is!" Thor exclaimed, throwing an arm around Loki's shoulders. "Thank you, brother, for all of this."

"While I've been standing at this wedding, I've made enough money to cover the costs just by existing," Loki shrugged.

"For being here," Thor clarified. "And being around me at all."

Sif pursed her lips. "I would think that Loki should be the grateful one, Thor."

Loki gave her one of his gentle, earnest smiles, under the assumption she'd assume it was sarcastic. "That I am."

"Well, I'm happy you're here," Jane said.

"Aye," Volstagg added. "It is good to see you on good terms again. When we were children you could not be separated!"

"I don't want to go into war stories," Loki said bluntly. "I'm trying to make nice. Janey, your dress is lovely."

"Thank you," she said. "For everything."

Loki's reply was cut off by the leader of the band asking Thor something and him answering in the affirmative. Half a minute later, and people were shuffling off the main floor to give Jane and Thor room.

"And that's my cue to find Tony," Loki muttered, weaving away. Suddenly an arm wrapped around his waist.

"May I have this dance?" Tony grinned.

"Well, I wouldn't normally," Loki said theatrically, then made a vague swooning gesture.

Tony led Loki towards the floor. On his way past, Loki finally spotted Fandral and pulled a rude hand gesture at him rather subtly. Fandral saw him. What his response was, Loki didn't see or care, mostly because the first song had ended and other people were piling onto the floor.

"All good with Thor?" Tony asked, hand automatically moving to Loki's waist out of habit as they moved to the music.

"Yes, by our standards," Loki told him.

"Look at you. The paragon of maturity. I've been good for you," Tony chuckled.

"Pity I've been such a terrible influence on you," Loki said.

Tony didn't even bother answering. It was kind of a romantic moment.

After a couple of dances, the novelty had worn off, and they settled off to the side with drinks in hand.

Tony sniffed Loki's cup. "God, what is it with you and crappy alcohol? You're paying for it; you might as well get the good stuff."

"And I could very well ask why you feel the need to police my fluids," tsked Loki. "But I won't, because I'm the bigger person in more ways than one."

"Fluids. Hehe," was Tony's only contribution.

Loki let out a sigh.

"Stop being so judgemental," Tony said. "You're the one who started giggling when Maya said 'moist'."

"I was drunk."

"You still did it."

"True," Loki said. "But you're sober."

"That's what you think," Tony said cheerfully. Then he gestured at the room on the whole. "It's going to be great when we do this."

"Looking forward to it," Loki agreed.

-O.O-

Thor and Jane departed for a hotel in the traditional car with 'JUST MARRIED' emblazoned on it. Darcy sprinted out of the hall at the last minute and made double thumbs-up at them.

"Where have you been?" Loki asked.

Darcy spread her hands excitedly._ "Dancing."_

"Have you found a worthy mate yet?" Loki said dryly.

"Nah. Most of them are Thor's big smiley friends or Jane's nerds. I'm looking for a refined gentlemen," Darcy said sagely. "Or someone who's actually good-looking. Whichever happens first."

"Which makes Barton a complete mystery to me," Loki said.

"He was funny," Darcy said. "And he was hot. Those archery biceps."

"If you say so, dear," Loki said, intentionally affecting the voice of a henpecked old man.

"Darcy, as someone who's actually into guys as well, I'm gonna have to say no," Tony said.

"You're biased," Darcy pointed out. "You're marrying Clint's arch-nemesis."

"An exaggeration," Loki said innocently.

In the morning, Jane and Thor were leaving. Rather than do the standard sunny lazy holiday thing, they were heading north to Iceland. Thor wanted to visit where his grandparents grew up and Jane was working on a theory to do with wormhole conductivity, and her work suggested that Iceland was the best place in the world to open an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. So they were both going to get something out of it.

-O.O-

The next day, the three of them saw Jane and Thor off at the airport and then headed home themselves.

Loki had an idea about where they were going for their own honeymoon.

-O.O-

When they got home, Extremis was still stable. Maya was ridiculously excited. This was her work, her genius work that she'd been trying to finish for over a decade.

She wanted to have it, to finally feel what it was like, but firstly she wanted to watch someone else accept it. Loki just needed a booster, and got it.

They didn't bother doing it in a proper medical capacity; that wasn't the kind of risk involved. Instead they organised a surgical table and a decent supply of nutrient fluid and did it themselves, Loki yanking Tony's arc reactor out as it began to melt.

It was a nervous day spent watching Tony heal, but it didn't seem to hurt or knock Tony out nearly as much as it had Loki. Maya really had figured it out to get the most stable permutation.

"This is your name in the world, Maya," Loki told her. "Tony and I want no credit for what tiny help we provided. You are the creator of the most important medical and biological invention for a long time."

She was actually beaming at that.

"He's - _uhn _\- he's not wrong," Tony grunted.

"Hush," Loki said, patting him on the forehead.


	5. Voluspo

**A/N: **DOUBLE CHAPTER BONUS ROUND! Just in case you didn't notice.

I was so excited about this chapter that I knocked it out rather quickly.

* * *

**Chapter Five: _Voluspo_**

Malekith managed to turn up to their next sessions. They'd pretty much given up on magic, barring the energy readings they'd taken. But he had so much information about the structure of the Nine Realms. In one of their sessions, they spent the entire time working with JARVIS to complete an accurate 3-D model of it with as much environmental information on each as Malekith could provide. He'd been to nearly every realm except Nidavellir, which was apparently the land of dwarves, and a world he claimed contained the Underworld. This seemed unlikely.

Once he'd left, Loki went back to the rather large book he'd been reading. It was rather unusual, a huge compilation of original Nordic texts referring to their mythology; this meant poetry and prose alike. He was nearly done and had a look of such intense concentration as he sat against Tony's headboard that Tony just accepted that there would be no fooling around.

Instead, Tony showered, brushed teeth, the usual. It was as he was drying his hair that he spotted it.

A grey one. Extremis did many things - like removing the need for his arc reactor, and every breath felt sweeter now - but it didn't actually stop aging. Maya's calculations said it would slow aging a little and definitely heal any damage, but he was still getting older, and that grey hair proved it.

Tony's lack of sound must have alerted Loki, because after a few minutes of ruffling through the rest of his hair and inspecting his beard, Loki came into the room and grasped his hands from behind.

"What are you doing, Anthony?" Loki asked.

"Grey hair. I have a grey hair. I'm a million years old," Tony said unhappily.

"If you're a million years old, then I suppose I am a million years old also. Minus seven," Loki said.

"Okay, Lokes, I may be awesome, but as you said, I'm seven years older than you. When I was ten, you were a toddler. Thirty-three and thirty-nine don't sound like that much, but I'm all old, really," Tony said.

Loki made a bitchface. "Of course! I should have realised our small age difference earlier. Now I cannot care about you. You are rejected; go die of old age elsewhere while I hunt out someone born within a month of myself."

"I'm serious."

"So am I. Get out."

Tony grabbed his grey hair and yanked it out.

Loki's hands slid up his arm and around his waist, and then he rested his head on top of Tony's.

"To be honest, I would struggle to care less about our age difference," Loki murmured gently. "As much as I do love fucking you, I'm actually with you because I like you as a person and I enjoy spending time with you. Grey hair or otherwise. So get over yourself and come to bed."

"You're too sweet," Tony grumbled, but it was fairly clear that he felt better.

"In any case, I have something to show you," Loki said, leading Tony to bed. He sat down on his side against the headboard again, but this time pulled Tony into the gap between his legs.

"JARVIS, project our Nine Realms model," Loki said.

"Amaze me," Tony said.

"I can do that," Loki said. He pointed at one planet, one that appeared an grey-orange. "Because Malekith is a Dark Elf from Svartalfheim, we know about the Nine Realms and its bridges. As such, I can teleport to the Literal Universe, but not the Nine Realms. Jane's technology could take us to the Nine Realms, but not the Literal Universe. And we have confirmed the existence of the Nine Realms, and of a large portion of Scandinavian mythology, yes?"

"Yeah, I follow," Tony said. It seemed like he was in for a long explanation, so he wriggled back into Loki a bit and made Loki put his arm around his chest.

"Malekith can confirm that Earth was invaded towards the end of the first millenium CE by one realm and rescued by two others. In this mythology, the Jotunn are the villains and the Light Elves and Vanir are the heroes. This matches with Malekith's account," Loki said.

Tony had heard all this before, but Loki paraphrased it so nicely in his smooth voice.

"This suggests that heroic or godlike figures that are widely attested to from that area have some base in real people."

"Like Good Queen Gullveig and the Frey people, right? I actually heard of those when I was a kid," Tony said.

"Yes. By his account, Gullveig is the person who ordered Malekith's execution."

"That's rude."

"It is. Also, the original manuscript says that King Freyr and Queen Freyja were twins and also married, which Mal confirmed. Apparently the Vanir have no issue with incest," Loki said.

"Ew."

"I agree," Loki said. "Leading on. Most Norse myths deal with the past; heroes and gods, their tales. Some are in the present tense. And then there are prophetic pieces, usually poems. Most are insignificant, but then there's this one."

Loki retrieved his book and opened it up to a page entitled _Voluspo._

"This one is generally accepted by scholars to be, how shall I say it, weird as fuck. Apparently it details the story of how Gullveig resurrected a seer or wise woman from the dead. and learned the past and future. It starts with a beautifully detailed rendition of the Norse creation myth, and then descends into insanity in the middle. Tales of a previous universe, similar to their own, but wherein instead of Alfheim and Vanaheim being the dominant power, Asgard is."

"Wait, what's the deal with Asgard?" Tony said. "Malekith didn't say anything."

"It is a land of unruled peasants who farm and mind their own business, though talented magicians often come from there, apparently. They were once ruled by great military kings, but a certain amount of fratricide and revolution destroyed that. But in the rendition in_ Voluspo,_ they were the dominant power for most of the history of the Nine Realms, and they were ruled over by a one-eyed king with a very familiar name."

"Fury?"

"Odin. With his son Thor and his wife Frigga," Loki said. "And it only gets more bizarre from there."

Now Tony was really listening. "What, your Odin was named after him?"

Loki shrugged. "I don't know. _I'm_ not going to ask him."

"Okay, this Norse stuff is weird," Tony said.

"I agree. Now, from the_ Voluspo,_ Odin, Frigga, Thor and a sword god named Tyr were worshipped by the Norse just from this poem, even though they are scarcely mentioned elsewhere. But there is one other god noted in the 'previous universe' part of the poem, and this is also the only known previous incident of my name anywhere in history: Loki, the god of fire, mischief, evil, and other things. His mentions are brief, as the section is short, and he sounds quite unlike me. But he did destroy the worlds. Also, it mentions something about him having a child with a male horse," Loki said.

"I could see that," Tony said.

Loki's hand had been aimlessly trailing across Tony's chest, but at that comment he pinched a roll of Tony's skin.

"Ow. You bitch!"

"Watch it."

"Never. Don't be mean."

"I do what I want. Now, that curiosity aside, I'd like to talk about the big issue. Loptr."

"I know this bit too. King of Jotunheim, Malekith thinks he looks like you, right?"

"Yes. So I did some research into Loptr. He is detailed in a prophetic poem named_ Jotunnguðmol._ Apparently he was born on the day the poem was written, though that seems a fantasy. He is destined to-" Loki pointed to the correct section on his page. "-bring chaos to the Nine Realms and destroy the universe. A lot of people seem destined to do that. In any case, the piece of interest is that his parents' names are Laufey and Farbauti."

"I think I might just recognise those names."

"Because apparently Jotunn don't give two shits about patronymics, he is credited with Farbautisson or Laufeyson as a last name. But it tends to use the latter. Now, who do we know with the last name Laufeyson?"

"Steve?"

"Yes. Steve," Loki said dryly. "So, we have an alien from Norse mythology with my last name and my face - according to Malekith - and my ex-something."

"What?"

"The last piece. He marries a fellow Jotnar named Angrboða in the future, apparently," Loki said. "Did I ever tell you what Angie was short for? I always shortened it to Angie because I couldn't pronounce 'Angrboða' when I was drunk."

"Okay. Too weird now."

"It is. And I want answers to the many, many question I have. So that's where I want to go," Loki murmured, pointing at the huge dark blue planet. Jotunheim. "Happy honeymoon, dearest."

"Better than going somewhere cliched like the south of France," Tony said, slipping down the bed so his head was cushioned against Loki's belly. "I'll follow you anywhere. And I want to know too. God - or gods, I guess - damnit, that is too weird."

* * *

**A/N: **A few things:

\- I know there's no ballad called Jotunnguðmol (The Ballad of the Jotunn Gods) and I don't doubt that it's spelt wrong by Icelandic poetic conventions.

\- I guess you have a pretty good idea about what the next part of this series will entail now.

\- I'm using the Bellows translation of the Poetic Edda for naming, if you notice a difference.

And thanks for reading ^.^


	6. Goddamn Fahrenheit Is Unreliable

**Chapter 6: Goddamn Fahrenheit Is Unreliable**

Tony buttoned up the suit and inspected himself. It fit perfectly. He wondered if he should be worried how well JARVIS and Pepper knew his dimensions.

The cut suited him. The red silk tie against the black suited him. The suit in general looked fantastic.

The problem was, he looked like he was going to a society ball or something. There was nothing in particular to denote the suit as the outfit he was going to be married in.

Less than three weeks. He could do it.

As the date snuck closer, he was starting to get nervous.

What if Loki said no? What if Tony baulked at the last minute, or fucked something up and upset Loki, or just_ did_ something wrong?

All these fears and more were crawling over him, but he put them down to the classic pre-wedding jitters and tried to focus.  
Yes, he liked the suit.

"How's the fit?" Pepper asked. "You have to dance in this, so don't just say it's fine to get it over with."

"You kidding me, Pep?" Tony said. "This is my wedding. My actual wedding. Not a Vegas wedding or a drunk wedding. Marriage to the pretty boy I love. 'Getting it over with' doesn't cross my mind."

"That's good," Pepper smiled. "But does it fit?"

"Yeah, perfectly. I'm glad you didn't go with the charcoal grey in the end," Tony said critically. "Run me through it again."

Because neither Tony nor Loki celebrated any kind of religion or were particularly traditional, Darcy and Pepper had basically just made up their own wedding ceremony, agreed upon in recent weeks by Tony and Loki, who'd just started properly getting involved.

First, they were going to get married. Walk up an aisle together, say a vow or three, then sign their marriage license. Cue dramatic kiss. Then speeches, first from Darcy and Rhodey (a quick investigation had revealed that yes, Tony had told Rhodey several years ago that if he ever got married, god forbid, then Rhodey was definitely going to be his best man) and then the happy couple themselves. This was to be followed by the reception.

All normal enough, except for the bit where two days later they fled into unexplored space for their honeymoon with an elf.

"Can I see what Loki looks like?" Tony asked eagerly.

"Not a chance," Pepper said. "Darcy and I want you to see each other for the first time in your outfits on the day."

"You're evil."

"We're trying to build an atmosphere."

"And I'm grateful for everything you're doing, but _Loki's ass-"_

"I'm grateful for that too."

"Ha. Loki makes you pervy," Tony said. "Wait, no. Don't think about Loki and his ass. That's mine now."

"I have three weeks left," Pepper said, smiling that smile of hers that looked innocent but really wasn't.

"Aw, you're mean," Tony said. "I'd better get out of this suit before I wreck it."

-O.O-

The next fitting room over, Loki was mentally panicking in much the same way, regarding both Tony's and his own abilities to actually get married.

He was also smartly dressed, though his suit had predictably green accents instead of red.

Also, Darcy was fluttering round chattering at the top of her voice.

"The suit looks good. Really good. Looks like it fits you okay, too. Can't wait to see you making out with Tony in it."

"Calm, Darcy," Loki soothed. "The suit fits. I should take it off, yes? Unless I am allowed to visit Tony in it. If I look this delightful in mine, then in his he must..."

Loki smiled to himself.

"Definitely," Darcy grinned. "But no. No looky, no touchy."

Loki affected a strong pout at her.

"That face doesn't work on me," Darcy reminded him.

His next move was going to be some sort of smolder - he didn't actually mind that much, but he didn't like to lose - when she told him firmly "Right, get the suit off. If it fits, we're all good. We have to try cakes."

-O.O-

Darcy and Pepper had all the non-preferential things sorted, so now they were bringing Tony and Loki in on the planning. What flowers, food, plates, clothing, et cetra, and also the guests.

Creating the guest list was tricky. A private occasion, yes, but then it was just good manners to invite all these associates of theirs. And then the press, and photographer, and trying to keep everything small enough and contained enough to stop people gatecrashing and somehow making a fuss.

So far, they were planning to use that Parker kid who'd interviewed them last year. He was honest, and didn't seem to be overly prying.

And on top of all that, the argument between Stark-Laufeyson and Laufeyson-Stark was ongoing.

Loki felt that he was winning.

Unfortunately, Tony also felt that he was winning, so the certainty of either statement was doubtful.

Weddings were hard. Fortunately, the one thing they could all agree on was that despite Loki's suggestion, no one wanted a mint and dark chocolate wedding cake.

-O.O-

"Okay, Malekith. You wanted to talk to Maya Hansen? Here she is," Tony said with a flourish.

Maya was staring at Malekith, who was in his natural skin and was therefore an item of curiosity for the average human.

"Hi," she said after a moment more of staring at Malekith's tattooed half.

"Hello," Malekith said.

Another little bit of staring.

"What did you want to know?" Maya managed.

"About your invention. The-" he fumbled, like he so often did over jargon or neologisms, words that didn't translate into his own language. "Extremis. It is similar to something from our own world, the Kurse."

"Really?" Maya said, her curiosity piqued. She sat down and immediately drew into conversation with him, all awkwardness forgotten in the name of scientific exploration.

Malekith had seen Loki and Tony using Extremis and had immediately been absolutely fascinated. This had resulted.

After about half an hour of discussion, the pair of them had ascertained that the Kurse and Extremis were similar, but the Kurse was more powerful and unstable. The basic underlying technology was pretty much the same, though, which produced the accurate reaction of "That is _excellent,"_ from Loki, and note-taking with SADIE from Tony.

Once Maya had left with the promise of another discussion the following Tuesday, Tony and Loki got right down to business.

"Mal," Loki began. "You know Loptr Laufeyson, yes?"

"I do," Malekith replied. "He is much like you."

"As you keep saying," Tony agreed. "See, after Earth weddings, it's the tradition to go on a honeymoon. But we want a break-"

"-and Loptr inspires curiosity-"

"So we were going to do some exploring of the Nine Realms. Mostly to Jotunheim," Tony finished.

"I think that is a good idea," Malekith said. "I'd be very interested to see how Loki and Loptr interact."

"That's good," Loki said. "We wanted to ask you if you would accompany us."

This point had been debated once they'd officially decided they were going. The benefits of taking Malekith were many: he knew the Nine Realms; he was a powerful mage who could help them in a fight; he was generally rather loyal; he knew Loptr personally; and he could teleport them as well as store their belongings in a pocket dimension.

These important facts were not quite outweighed by the cons of taking him: he was a wanted fugitive; he could be annoying at times; and with him around, and his resentment of Tony's relationship with Loki, the touchy-touchy would have to kept to a minimum.

But that had mostly cooled. He'd given them blessing for their wedding.

They told Malekith the reasons he wanted to come, and he just shrugged. "That I can understand. Loptr is greatly resentful of the Light Alliance - or what's left of it - and he'll gladly look after us."

"Okay, right. So you'll come?" Tony asked.

"Yes, I think so," Malekith replied.

"Thank you," Loki said. "We leave two days after our wedding, so make any preparations you must. Just as a little bit of forewarning, what can you tell us about the Light Alliance?"

"Undoubtedly it has changed in the last few hundred years," Malekith told him. "Queen Gullveig is the centrepiece. She controls it all, even Alfheim, because after the death of their last, childless, monarch, she married two of her siblings together and put them on the throne."

Tony made a face.

"I agree. Things like that are frowned upon everywhere except among the Vanir," Malekith shrugged. "Back in the heyday of the Light Alliance - it has practically dissolved now - they had a hand in every realm, even Midgard. This is obviously barring Muspelheim, inhabited by the Eldjotnar, and Niflheim, land of the dead."

"Obviously," Tony agreed with a straight face.

Loki flicked him on the leg. "So we need to watch out for them."

"Oh, no. You'll be fine; Gullveig just loves to belittle people of the minor realms," Malekith said bitterly. "I'll just shift into a pale skin. I could be your elf assistant."

"How about we avoid them as much as we can?" Loki suggested.

"That would be good," Malekith said. "And on that subject, transport. A teleportation embargo was put into place onto Jotunheim recently; I know this because when you asked me a few questions about Loptr, I attempted a visit."

"So, what? We can't go?" Tony asked.

"We can use my technology," Loki pointed out.

"Loki is correct. Magical teleportation is a no. His electrical transportation is a yes. However, I will need to amplify it as I did last year," Malekith said.

That was why Loki's teleportation had worked over such long distances at the time. Travelling at light speeds was one thing, but when magically augmented, he could go any distance as fast as blinking.

"So that's sorted," Tony said. "This is either going to be the best trip ever, or the worst."

"The former, I hope," Loki said. "Will you have to worry about getting time off from SHIELD?"

Malekith looked almost bored by the suggestion. "I don't particularly care."

"That's okay, because neither do I," Loki snorted.

On that note, Malekith looked around expectantly and said "I am here for the rest of the day. I can tell you more about the Realms."

This offer was taken up by the pair of them.

-O.O-

After that, the two of them actually split up for once. Tony went back to his own lab to work on a new version of his suit - one with life support designed for non-Earth environment, and plenty of temperature resistance - and Loki led Darcy upstairs in Laufeyson Tower to his office.

"This is my office, Darcy," Loki said with a decidedly condescending wave of his hand. "That is my desk. Those are my windows. These are my bookshelves. Most importantly, that is my chair, where I often sit."

"I know. I've been in here once or twice."

"A surprise every time," Loki said. "This means that you are fully qualified to run Laufeyson Corp for up to a month."

"Uh, no. No, I'm not. I'm your pet monkey around here," Darcy said.

"And from today, that monkey will be given a typewriter," Loki said grandly.

"What?"

"An infinite number of monkeys given typewriters..."

"Oh, yeah. Screw you."

"How cruel. Now, Darcy. Laufeyson Corp will largely run itself, mostly because I don't suffer fools in higher levels of management. Your task is simple: I am giving you my authoritive powers. You sign things. You give orders when they seem to be necessary. I'm sure you can find someone to delegate anything tricky to. PR problem? I have people for that. You are told that finances are out of order? Send it to that department. Worst comes to worst, you should call Thor. He's actually not a complete idiot."

Darcy took a deep breath. _"Whatthehell._ Is this about your honeymoon? Where the fuck are you going where I can't call you?"

"Outer space," Loki said seriously.

"Again?" Darcy said.

"By my own volition this time," Loki said. He then gave her a quick rundown on the whole Loptr Laufeyson situation.

"Wow. That is messed up," Darcy said. "So you're what, cosmic twins or something. Universe brothers?"

"I have no idea," Loki shrugged. "But I do intend to find out."

"You do that. Yeah, I'll look after this place. If you can do it, how hard can it be?" Darcy said.

"Damn straight," Loki said. He then accepted a hug from her. "Now, you're boss tomorrow, as a test run. You can find me with Tony."

"As always."

"Yes, as always. Meanwhile, it's quitting time. I'm thinking a stir-fry, hm?" Loki said.

"Sounds better than Hot Pockets," Darcy shrugged.

-O.O-

Regrouping for dinner informed Loki that Tony had been working hard and wanted Loki's advice.

"So Malekith's pretty sure that the temperature on Jotunheim is about 20, 25 degrees," Tony said, shoveling carrot into his mouth.

Loki raised an eyebrow. "What is that in sensible measurements?"

"I dunno. Maya? Darcy? 25 degrees Fahrenheit in Celsius," Tony said.

"Below zero," Darcy said.

"Thanks," Tony said dryly.

Maya thought for a second. "Maybe -5? Something around that."

_"Americans,"_ Loki sighed. "In any case, cold. It is my belief that Extremis will serve to keep us warm and safe, so long as we eat a lot to compensate."

"I think I could do that," Tony said. "Maya?"

"I'd say so. The symptoms of freezing would be counteracted by Extremis, sure," Maya said.

"In that, preparing for cold weather could actually be problematic if Extremis sets our clothing on fire," Loki said.

"That was what I was thinking," Tony said. "But I think we should both wear teleporting units, just in case something bad happens."

"Mm. Working on it."

They'd all had projects recently. Loki had been working on teleportation devices that were a little more user-friendly, Tony had been screwing around with the Iron Man suit, Darcy had been running around Laufeyson Corp, and perhaps most interestingly, Maya had moved on from stabilising Extremis and was now working on a smaller, impermanent version for healing injuries instantly.

It was nice to be busy. Even nicer when said busy was working up to a joyous wedding.

After dinner, Tony and Loki sat down with a shortlist of potential wedding guests and vetted them.

Family, yes, for what little they had. Avengers, definitely. Friends from here and there. Nick Fury, as a sign of goodwill.

"We should invite Justin Hammer. Ironically. He should get the invitation in prison and just be pissed off," Tony said.

"If you insist," Loki said. "On the condition I can be petty and spiteful with an invitation, too."

"'Course."

"I'm inviting Mother only, and giving her the option of a plus one," Loki said.

"Hehe. Good one," Tony said. "People make all these jokes about mother-in-laws, but I've met Frigga in person once and she told me she was proud you were marrying me. And she gave me a hug, one of those really nice ones."

"When?"

"Thor's wedding," Tony said.

"Oh. I didn't know that."

"Your mother is a shining symbol of perfection," Tony said dramatically.

"I have to agree," Loki told him.

"Yeah, I'm in on that," Darcy said. "When I went to visit Jane last year, she dropped in and gave me cake. For my birthday, y'know?"

"Spiced apple cake?" Loki asked.

"Yeah," Darcy said, sinking back into the couch.

Loki made a similar gesture, well-being radiating off him.

"So we're definitely invited Frigga," Tony murmured, ticking her off on the guest list. "We could invite the president. He likes us, right?"

"Go for it," Loki said. "I'm not fussy."

"Says the fussiest guy in New York. How long does it take you to wash your hair?" Tony snarked.

"Double standards. You don't have hair," Loki tutted. "Darcy, Maya. It's not unreasonable to take a little while to wash long hair, yes?"

Maya shrugged. Darcy nodded.

"See?" Loki said.

"Yeah, yeah, you win, pretty boy," Tony said. "Right. Let's look at photographers."


	7. Waiting For That Moment

**Chapter 7: Waiting For That Moment**

Loki had to make sure he looked perfect. He had to.

He knew that Tony didn't really care what he looked like, would marry him if he was wearing strategically sewn burlap sacks, but it was the whole idea of the thing.

The magic day, wherein everything was perfect and the love of the whole affair glistened like a well-cut gemstone. Or something.

Fortunately, he had Darcy flitting around helpfully.

"Your nose is a bit shiny; I've got some powder, just stand still and I'll fix it-" she said. "Stop grinning like an idiot and put your jacket on."

"I'm happy, Darcy. That causes smiling in most cases," Loki said. Despite that, he did take her advice and slid his jacket on, buttoning it and inspecting his own reflection. All good.

"You're a huge dork," Darcy said firmly, stepping up on her tip-toes to do the aforementioned powdering, then stretched a little further and kissed him on the cheek. "So's your future husband, though, so you're set."

Loki was still grinning like an idiot. But he was an idiot ready to go. He grabbed a tissue from a box and wiped a few specks of dust from his shoes, making sure they were damn shiny.

"You nervous?" Darcy asked.

"Like you wouldn't believe," Loki murmured.

"Don't be. You and Tony are meant to be, sort of. More than some couples that get together," Darcy said. "Also, Pep and I have got this wedding thing down pat. Nothing much can go wrong."

"You would be surprised how badly things can go wrong," Loki said pessimistically. "The best laid plans, as they say."

"Not today. Today you're walking on sunshine."

Loki looked like he was going to argue some more, but instead he just thanked Darcy for her efforts.

"You're welcome. I'm still pissed you wouldn't let me have Maya and Jane as flowergirls, though," Darcy said. She was giving him a go-over, checking that everything was in place. She even straightened a crooked cufflink.

"Flowergirls are to symbolise young womanhood and purity," Loki told her. "I possess neither of those."

"Regrettably, for the first one. You would've made a pretty girl," Darcy told him.

"In a different life, you would have too," Loki said.

"Hey! Rude. I'm pretty as _fuck,"_ Darcy said.

"And so ladylike."

"Being ladylike is a waste of time. That said, I love the dress," Darcy said, picking critically at her own attire, something off-the-shoulder and crimson that hugged her curves. "Not my usual thing, but I'll take it."

"You look perfect, Darcy," Loki said.

Everything was starting to look perfect.

-O.O-

Tony was similarly getting ready, only he had Rhodey helping him.

"Pretty simple, Tony. Just put on the smile you get from your happiest memory and walk up the aisle with him," he said.

"I'm pretty sure we're in the process of creating my happiest memory now," Tony said. "I'm actually getting married. This is nuts."

"Of the two of us, I honestly thought it would be me first," Rhodey admitted. "But I'm happy for you, man."

"I'm happy for me too," Tony said. "Nothing's going to change in terms of day-to-day life, yeah, but I'm still changing my name and becoming that guy who's married to Loki Laufeyson."

"Maybe he'll be the guy who married Tony Stark," Rhodey said. "What're you doing about last names?"

"We ended up on Laufeyson-Stark. I'm still a bit miffed. But it works out best. Also, he promised me one Loki favour in exchange," Tony told him happily. "Those things are worth more than you'd think. He doesn't hand them out on street corners."

"I'm sure he doesn't. Am I up to your standards?" Rhodey said, gesturing to his own suit.

"You look beautiful, darling."

"Save it for Loki."

"Oh, trust me, I've got plenty saved for him. SADIE'll film it, if you want to see."

Rhodey didn't dignify that with an answer. Instead he looked Tony over critically and announced him ready to go.

"Just on time," Rhodey said. "You need to be in place at the doorway in three minutes. I have to go."

"Godspeed, little ringbearer," Tony swooned.

He may have been a little overexcited, but he was allowed to be. It was his wedding day. Under other circumstances he could've become something of a groomzilla.

Almost all of his apprehensions had vanished now that he was about to do it. He spiked his hair a little more - the totally formal look had been discarded - inspected his beard for any more grey hair, straighted his clothing, removed dust, and generally fidgeted for a minute or two more.

Then he left the room and headed for the atrium.

Everyone would be inside the hall now.

-O.O-

Tony had had a stag party the night before, but the whole 'strippers and alcohol' idea had surprisingly lacked appeal. He had gone to a club that featured scantily dressed ladies - and, to his surprise, Steve had come along, taking time off from work to attend his friend's wedding. There had been others too, Rhodey, Happy, Bruce and Pepper included, but it largely been a subdued affair. That wasn't to say Tony hadn't drunk anything, but, as he had learned, Extremis allowed him to break down alcohol rapidly enough that it didn't have much effect.

Loki had had one too, but the vast majority of his friends were female, and it had actually become hanging round in the private room of a club telling anecdotes while Loki amusedly watched them - Darcy, Maya and Natasha - get drunk and start getting giggly. Some of the anecdotes were excellent - Darcy had shared a few about Loki that he might have preferred to keep quiet, but Maya got her back. In the last few months, the pair of them had done some stupid things that Loki hadn't heard about.

-O.O-

Tony made it to the atrium without running away or starting to tremble uncontrollably.

Loki was on the other side, talking quietly to his mother. She was going to take him up the aisle and give him awy, so to speak, because she was the only elder family either of them had or cared to recognise.

Having Frigga staying with them in the last couple of days had been excellent - she could respect their own space but really did want to spend time with them, and seized any opportunity to engage Loki in motherly activities. She'd spent an hour or two knitting with him on arrival, talking to him about various mutual acquaintances and getting him to feed her wool.

The confirmation that Loki was such a mother's boy wasn't surprising, but it was cute.

But in the there and then, Tony was waiting for Loki to meet his eyes, just a little nervous.

When Loki looked at him, Tony had been expecting nervousness on Loki's part, or uncertainty, or even unhappiness. But all he saw on Loki's face was genuine joy. And he managed to register that the same emotion was showing up on his own. He moved forward and took Loki's hand in his own, feeling a reassuring warm squeeze, and then the pair of them made their way up the aisle, Frigga's arm linked through Loki's other.

It was torture, in a way. When Tony felt like that - all full of love and touchy-feelyness - he usually excused Loki and himself for a make-out session, or maybe just lying around on each other talking, or something equally sappy. Now he had to resist the urge and remain sensible.

Everyone was there. The other old Avengers - barring Clint - various SHIELD officials, so many friends, sparse family. A few professional associates. Agent Malachy Dorcha, his mismatched eyes twinkling at them.

Natasha looked dangerous in her pitch black dress, and Steve looked charmingly boyish. Maya looked slightly awkward, a stance matched by Bruce, who she got along with.

Fury and Maria were there, as was Winchester. Happy and Pepper were sitting together, both looking like proud parents.

Thor looked like he was going to cry, and had Jane smiling next to him. Odin next to Thor looked gruff, and was.

The photographer was already taking pictures, the motion camera was recording everything from a position midway up the front wall, and Parker was watching attentively while typing notes onto a little tablet.

But Loki wasn't looking at any of that. The only things really anchoring him to reality were Frigga's perfume and Tony's hand in his.

And then they'd made it up the aisle, and Frigga was peeling away, and they were facing each other.

Whether consciously or subconsciously, Tony was making that face he made when he wanted Loki to kiss him, and the temptation was painful. They were going to do the vows and marriage license first.

They took each other's hands, and Tony recalled his vows.

He'd memorised them. He was going first. He could do it.

"Loki," he started, and the words rang out loudly in the hall. Everyone was listening, but he didn't really care. He just wanted Loki to hear.

The vows, for him, were not something boring or obligatory. He was going to make some promises to Loki and they were going to be goddamn binding.

"I vow to help you, in your many endeavours. To enable you to achieve your goals. I vow to stand by you no matter the situation, good or bad, and do so without complaint. I vow to protect you and stand up for you, but with that, to respect you and who you are. I vow to love and cherish and revere you. And I vow that on my life and everything I hold dear," Tony said, his voice trembling a little in the middle. All of those things were things he'd promised himself privately, but now they were said in front of the crowd and to Loki himself.

Rhodey blinked a few times, then said his bit. "And so you, Tony Stark, will take Loki Laufeyson to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

Tony stopped himself from saying 'yeah' and said "I do."

Loki sniffed once, and Tony wondered if he was crying. It was certainly an emotional moment.

"Tony," Loki began, then took a deep breath. "Tony, firstly and foremostly I vow to make you happy. That means many things; as such, I vow to protect you, care for you, be there for you when you need me, and have empathy for you when you struggle. I vow to be the best person I can be for you, and that includes loving you unconditionally. And I vow that on my life and everything I hold dear."

Darcy was beaming as she said "And so you, Loki Laufeyson, you'll take Tony Stark to be your lawfully wedded husband?"

"I do," Loki said, his voice just a little reverent.

Frigga brought forward a little tray with a sheet of paper and two pens on it. Tony and Loki picked them up, then signed on the lines.

And that was that. They accepted the rings from Rhodey and Darcy and slid them on, simple gold bands with a little personal inscription inside. There was a moment of silence, and then they leaned together and finally their lips met.

They'd practiced it, and not jokingly. It was a toss-up between polite, passionate, and cute, and they'd eventually settled for a combo of the last two options.

Tony's arms slid around Loki's neck and he felt Loki's hands on his own waist as they kissed affectionately, keeping it largely closed-mouth.

After they'd done that for a few seconds and realised that everyone was clapping and cheering, they pulled away and smiled at each other for a moment.

"Love you," Loki murmured, then kissed him again on the corner of his mouth.

"Love you too," Tony replied.

There were five chairs on the raised area up the front of the hall where they were, and that was where the pair of them sat, accompanied by Frigga and Darcy. It was time for Rhodey's speech.

Rhodey chuckled to himself, a little awkwardly, then retrieved cue cards from his suit jacket.

"I've known Tony for a long, long time. I've been his friend for almost as long, as unlikely a friendship as it was, me being straight-laced and him being...well, Tony Stark," Rhodey said to a murmur of laughter. "I'll be honest with you. I never saw him getting married. A girl a night, for him. He had his head buried in his lab too often to think about letting anyone new in. It was hard enough being his friend - no offence, man. So it was the logical conclusion that a long-term girlfriend - or boyfriend, but I didn't know Tony swung that way back then - wasn't going to happen.

"He was different after becoming Iron Man, more settled, and more focused on the world around him. I thought maybe things would work out differently to how I'd thought, though I wasn't sure who with," Rhodey said, though he was looking at Pepper, who'd almost had a thing with Tony that Loki had inadvertedly aborted. "After that, Tony moved to Manhattan and we dropped out of contact. Imagine my surprise when Pepper told me he was in a relationship, and with Loki Laufeyson, which I don't think anyone saw coming. I don't even think they were expecting it.

"But I didn't see that much of Tony last year. I can freely admit that the reason I actually ended up as his best man is because he promised I could be while he was drunk, and if nothing else, Tony keeps his drunk promises. Otherwise, I'm sure Tony would have found a way to make Loki his best man, because they're pretty close.

"The first time I saw Tony and Loki together was during last Christmas's Mandarin drama. They didn't have time to act cute and charming, because we were fighting for our lives," Rhodey said, his tone moving from joking to decidedly serious. "I can always tell among soldiers, which partnerships have and haven't seen action together. Tony and Loki have; they've fought together and they really will do anything for each other. When I told Loki that Tony was in trouble, I saw his desperation to protect him and his fear of loss. There was nothing selfish, and I'm honoured that you're marrying Tony. You'll be amazing."

Rhodey chuckled. "I'm dragging on a bit here. To sum it up, thank you to Pepper Potts and Darcy Lewis for the wedding itself and Loki, Tony, congratulations on your happy day, and I hope you have many more. Thank you."

There was plenty of clapping, from Loki and Tony especially, as Rhodey smiled and took his seat.

Darcy was up next, and she chuckled nervously at the mic before she did anything. "That's a tough act to follow. Mine isn't nearly as long."

Then she pulled out her cue cards - thankfully from the purse she'd brought instead of out of her bra, which was where she usually kept little things like that while in a dress - read them over, counted to ten under her breath to steady her nerves, and finally started to talk.

"Okay. I'm Darcy Lewis, I'm Loki's secretary, sort of, but more importantly, I'm his friend. I've known him for thirteen years now, and when I met him through Thor, I wondered how the heck that mess of a postgraduate was going to start a company. When I got to know him, I thought he could do it, but I wondered if his social skills were up to it. Turns out he's a charmer. But one thing I never thought he could do back then was get married or hold up a long-term relationship. Our own only lasted three weeks.

"I was the first person to think Loki and Tony would go well together. I kept pointing it out to them too, but they never listened. After they'd actually had an amiable conversation, I said - and this is the actual quote, from CCTV - 'Aw, c'mon, I can totally see you two together riding off into the sunset or whatever.' I was dismissed rudely by Loki. So when they started dating a few months later, a few '_I told you so_'s were in order.

"The first reason I thought they'd go well together is because they're both secretly huge nerds. True to form, these days they spent far too much time in the lab buried up to their ears in science. The second reason is that they're both really sassy, and I was right there too - anyone who's heard them bicker can agree. They're both secretly dead loyal and determined to help who they care about, and they both love finally finding some intelligent conversation, something I think Loki found frustrating about me. And I can be protective over Loki - it's kind of my job - but never once have I thought that the relationship that we're celebrating today is anything but good.

"So, thank you very much for asking me to be your Best Lady. Thank you all for being here. Thank you to Pepper for organising all of this, and last of all, many well-wishes to Loki and Tony."

Darcy grinned as people clapped for her, then she went to sit down.

The next speech was supposed to be Tony's, admittedly. But they'd rehearsed that. It sounded stiff and formal for one of them to talk, then the other. It sounded even worse when one of them stayed sitting and the other stood to talk. So, after some discussion and a little bickering, they'd agreed to do their speech together.

"I guess we'll be known as the Laufeyson-Starks, now," Tony started. "Kind of makes us sound like that domestic couple down the road with two kids that you sorta know from school."

"There isn't much to say," Loki added. "This is undoubtedly one of the happiest days of my life, and the life of the other Mr Laufeyson-Stark. Almost everyone I care for is in this room seeing me marry my love, and I'll be certain to talk to you all when we begin the reception shortly."

"Which goes for me, too," Tony cut in cheerily. "So we'll keep it short, because gods know I want to get some cake into my mouth. We just two little announcements first."

"The first one is a massive thank you to Darcy and Pepper for their organising of this; everything is perfect," Loki continued. "Secondly, a few people have asked us about our honeymoon plans. We do have one; we're going away somewhere isolated and unique so we can have some time to ourselves. A shiny prize to someone who can find us; we leave in two days and will return after at least a week, or so we assume."

That caused a slight stir of people asking other people what was going on.

"Don't miss us too much," Tony grinned, and then leaned over and kissed Loki on the cheek. "Anyway. The service people are going to move the benches and replace them with tables and chairs, so prepare to shift your buns."

-O.O-

The plan had always been for a cheerful and companionable reception, which was why they hadn't gone on with speeches for another hour or two. Instead the Laufeyson-Starks - and it was so nice for them to call themselves that - led the first dance, properly waltzing instead of just swaying together like they usually did.

After that, the happy couple migrated around the room chatting to everyone excitedly and refusing to move out of physical contact with each other.

Frigga was the first person they talked to. She hugged both of them. "It's lovely to see you so happy," she told them. "And a pleasure to have you in our family, Tony. You must come and visit as soon as you can bear it. I know what it's like to be a newlywed."

Loki cringed slightly at that thought. Tony laughed.

"I'm proud of you, boy," was what Odin had to say.

Loki's "Thank you," somehow managed to be both excessively polite and a little rude.

Thor gave them another crushing hug and his well-wishes.

Darcy, Jane, and Maya had formed a clump of cute female nerds and were talking together happily when they saw Tony and Loki, and immediately came over to talk about them.

Pepper and Happy flocked over too, which lead to a greater intensity of female discussion and Happy awkwardly patting Tony on the back.

Moving on brought them to Rhodey and a few other people Tony had worked with, which prompted a slightly more serious discussion, then some ribbing for Tony and a few apologies to Loki for being 'stuck with him'.

Man talk. Or something.

Malekith drifted over at some point to confirm their arrangements and congratulate them. He didn't look as happy as he could have been - which could perhaps be attributed to the fact that Dark Elf faces were not as expressive as human ones - but he seemed to be over himself.

The cake was amazing, as were the other foods. Everything came off without a hitch. Tony and Loki made a point of thanking the organisers again for their efforts.

Steve, Nat, and Bruce actually seemed quite emotional. It was good to have them there after everything they'd been through; just a pity Clint didn't come.

Surprisingly, Fury did talk to them, and in a relatively companionable way too. It seemed to be a cover for his curiosity about their honeymoon destination and whether it had anything to do with Malekith taking time off work at the same time, but at least he was polite about his prying. Maria just stood next to him and looked serious in that way of hers.

The pair of them somehow ended up sharing a chair and nibbling cake while watching other people chat. They were soon joined by Darcy, who for once was not with Maya, Jane or Pepper.

"So. Good wedding?" Darcy asked, swiping some frosting from their cake plate.

"The best," Tony grinned as he delivered more cake from his fork to Loki's mouth.

"Maya and I are gonna be hanging around Stark Tower tomorrow with some other folks. No obligations for you guys to leave the bedroom, you know, but you should probably drop in between rounds of-" she made a suggestive hand gesture.

"We'll make sure of it, Darcy dear. If you're fortunate, we may even shower for you," Loki said cheerfully.

"What an honour. Also, everyone's supposed to be leaving in quarter of an hour or so, so you should have another dance," Darcy said.

"Shall we, Mr Laufeyson-Stark?" Tony asked, taking Loki's hand in his own.

"It would be my pleasure, Mr Laufeyson-Stark."

The novelty wasn't going to wear off anytime soon.

-O.O-

Despite the pleasure of the day, it was still a relief to teleport back to Laufeyson Tower.

(They'd considered doing the whole 'Just Married' car back there, but the traffic at that hour meant a _hell no_ to that)

Neither of them could really remember the last time that day they'd been out of physical contact with each other, but they both knew it had to have been unpleasant.

Loki's hands slid from the small of Tony's back to his ass with a distinct lack of subtlety.

"I think," Loki said in a low purr. "That we've shown enough restraint today, don't you?"

"Well,_ I_ think, Mr Laufeyson-Stark, that restraint is for people who didn't just marry Loki Laufeyson," Tony grinned, moving his hands to the buttons on Loki's jacket.

He was about to start undoing them when Loki stopped him. "I'm supposed to carry you over the threshold, yes?"

"What? No. Don't," Tony said, but Loki was already picking him up bridal-style (funnily enough) and carrying him towards his bedroom. "Loki, put me down."

"Make me," Loki said, more than a little wicked. Once they made it through the door, Loki dumped Tony on the bed.

"You're mine," Loki murmured happily, crawling onto the mattress.

"No, you're mine, and brand spanking new. I gotta make sure not to scratch the paint," Tony said, pulling Loki down on top of him and finally kissing him, passionately and hotly like he'd wanted to hours ago.

Despite the number of snarky rejoinders that came to mind, Loki and Tony didn't say anything else for some time.

* * *

**A/N: **Writing emotional junk is not my forte, sadly.

So, that's the end of this part of My Fellow Hedonist, which was unfortunately not exactly riveting.

However! I'm all ready to start writing the next bit, and that'll probably happen soonish. It'll have worldbuilding, plus Loptr, so that's gotta be good!

Thank you for reading ^.^


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